Dolia Talks | Wine, spirits and beverages marketing and sales

This show is sponsored by Dolia, the growth platform for beverage brands. Amanda Thomson founded Noughty in 2019, years before non-alcoholic wine became a category investors chase. She trained in fine wine and champagne in Paris, ran her own sparkling and champagne label, and only then built a non-alcoholic wine brand out of a genuine gap in the market.She and Giovanni talk through how Noughty built its UK distribution model before the country's biggest distributor came calling, how she decides between fine wine distributors, trend-led importers, and food service partners depending on the market, and why she still says no to distribution deals she doesn't believe in.Essential listening for anyone building or distributing a beverage brand in a category still working out its own rules.AGENDA: 1:09 Origins: "good wine before good non-alc wine"2:16 Launching Noughty in 2019 & the market opportunity 3:17 Developing the product & finding winemaking partners6:00 What makes a good non-alcoholic wine7:19 Launching just before COVID & the pandemic pivot9:51 Zebra striping / flexi-drinking trend 13:57 Noughty's customer profile15:13 B2C vs. B2B: the omni-channel launch strategy21:52 Importers, distributors & portfolio fit24:31 How Amanda selects (and rejects) distributors26:55 UK vs. US market differences31:04 Paid brand partnerships 33:21 Social media's role in building the brand34:17 Community & the "wine club"/DTC approach 41:45 Lessons fine wine taught Naughty43:06 Amanda's quick-fire round

This show is sponsored by Dolia, the growth platform for beverage brands. Find out more here.Juan Carlos Maroto Jara has built brand strategy for three very different beverage businesses: Gin Mare from a blank sheet, Matusalem through a 150-year-old family business turnaround, and Match, the premium mixer brand he co-founded at Curius, designed from day one for e-commerce and specialty coffee rather than the back bar.In this episode, he walks through how each brand's positioning got built, from Gin Mare's refusal to claim a single Mediterranean country, to the global governance reset that saved Matusalem, to why Match is stripping "tonic water" out of its own name starting in the US, with Europe following in 2027.Essential listening for anyone working in beverage brand positioning or international market entry.AGENDA:1:39 – Common thread across Gin Mare, Matusalem & Match5:40 – Building the Gin Mare brand & "Mediterranean gin" concept12:29 – Was the "no single country" branding strategy right, and would it work today?16:12 – Translating brand story into buyer/trade pitches20:03 – Matusalem: reviving a 150-year-old brand27:32 – Why launch something new: the origin of Match31:12 – "Fashion-like" brand approach & the Waitrose/Corte Inglés stories37:13 – When does a mixer stop being a mixer and become a drink?41:08 – The role of trade shows42:53 – What traditional wine/spirits brands can learn from Match44:58 – Quick-fire round

This episode is sponsored by Dolia, the growth platform for beverage brands. Find out more here.Rodolphe Frerejean Taittinger has built three beverage brands that have almost nothing in common except him. Frerejean Frères is a grower champagne house from Avize, French Bloom is the alcohol-free wine brand LVMH decided to back in 2024, and Coutanseaux is a cognac house tracing back to 1767.In this conversation, he walks through how a scarcity-driven grower champagne house picks distributors differently than a category-leading challenger brand does, how French Bloom found its actual buyer after badly misjudging the market at launch, and why he thinks cognac's comeback depends on smaller formats and sharper positioning rather than bigger price tags.Essential listening for anyone building a beverage brand across more than one category, or trying to figure out where the real demand for alcohol-free sits.AGENDA: 3:07 – Champagne market: positioning, terroir, and Frerejean Fréres' philosophy7:43 – Distribution strategy and choosing specialized distributors10:13 – Entering the US and Japanese markets12:20 – Partnerships: airlines, Michelin restaurants, and creative marketing16:13 – Opportunity for smaller Champagne houses in hospitality/tourism20:08 – Transition to French Bloom: the origin story 24:34 – Understanding the non-alcoholic wine market and flexi-drinkers29:24 – Industry skepticism toward non-alcoholic products32:29 – What traditional winemakers can learn from beverage startups36:50 – LVMH investment and the Formula 1 partnership39:39 – Market performance across 68 countries and surprising wins41:56 – Introduction to Coutanseaux cognac and its family history46:21 – Making cognac more accessible and rethinking pricing47:29 – Appealing to younger cognac consumers48:46 – Quick-fire round

This podcast is sponsored by Dolia, the growth platform for beverage brands. Find out more at https://getdolia.comRuggero Raymo co-founded Portofino gin in 2019 after a career in sports sponsorship at AC Milan, FIFA, and Eurosport, with no prior experience in beverage or spirits. Seven years later, Portofino is a globally distributed premium gin brand, and Ruggero has become one of the sharper commercial minds in the category on how to build demand from outside the traditional trade playbook.Ruggero walks through how Portofino used cross-industry partnerships with fashion, design, art, and sports brands to create consumer pull before ever pitching a distributor, the pyramid strategy behind sequencing on-trade, off-trade, and eventually supermarkets, and how two competitor acquisitions reshaped the Mediterranean gin category in Portofino's favor.Essential listening for anyone building or distributing a beverage brand in a category everyone insists is already too crowded.AGENDA00:05 From sports sponsorships to launching a gin brand02:40 Three lessons for launching a brand with zero experience04:30 State of the gin and spirits market today07:09 Is the gin category oversaturated?09:09 Where the real growth is: premium and ultra-premium10:08 How the market outlook has changed since 201913:13 The no/low alcohol trend, plus a teaser on Portofino's next launch16:00 The early days: hand-delivering gin and first sales channels18:58 The cross-industry partnership strategy behind Portofino24:43 Balancing wide distribution with a premium position27:22 Current sales channel split and market-by-market differences28:55 How Portofino picks its next market: the data behind expansion31:31 How two competitor acquisitions opened doors for Portofino34:26 The US opportunity and the state-by-state playbook36:20 Alcohol tourism and hospitality strategy38:02 Quick fire round

This podcast is sponsored by Dolia, the growth platform for beverage brands. Find out more here.Paola Pavan spent years running multi-million-dollar promotional campaigns for the Italian Trade Agency before going independent to help individual brands solve the part the institutions never could: actually selling in the US market. Today she runs OPC International, guiding European wine and spirits brands through the country's notoriously fragmented three-tier distribution system.In this episode, we cover how that system really works, why most brands compete inside their own distributor's portfolio before they ever compete in the open market, what it takes to create demand for a new product in a category with limited shelf space, and why some of the best-selling "Italian" wines in America are owned and run by American companies.Essential listening for anyone working on US market entry for a beverage brand.AGENDA:03:33 US alcohol consumption trends vs Europe04:24 Market size and the three-tier distribution system06:23 Inside a distributor's portfolio: the Mionetto example08:19 Strategy and execution: why quality alone isn't enough09:01 Italy vs France vs the US: the competitive landscape11:38 The "Italian" wines actually owned by American companies12:15 Should a small producer even try? Access to capital in the US14:55 The minimum viable presence playbook16:13 Why brands still need to manage key accounts directly18:25 Budget reality: Italian revenue vs US marketing spend21:00 Creating demand without a distributor's help24:39 Alternative entry paths and lucky breaks27:26 The role and limits of consortia and trade agencies31:20 Can social media build demand before distribution?35:12 The export process, start to finish39:25 Timeline and cost to enter the US market40:11 Ready-to-drink: an underused opportunity for wineries41:39 Why market entry strategy differs by country42:44 Quickfire round